Casey Anthony: Date rape led to pregnancy

January 11, 2012|By Anthony Colarossi and Amy Pavuk, Orlando Sentinel

Just when we thought we couldn't learn more about Casey Anthony's life, depositions of two of her doctors unsealed Wednesday reveal either a new depth to her lies or years spent covering up sexual abuse and then coping with her daughter's death.

Explosive accounts of Anthony's life and her version of what happened to Caylee Marie almost four years ago became public when Chief Judge Belvin Perry unsealed the depositions of Dr. William Weitz and Dr. Jeffrey Danziger.

The two mental-health experts questioned Anthony extensively and conducted psychological evaluations. Both were initially on the witness list for her defense leading up to her trial last year. Though neither doctor testified at trial, large pieces of the accounts Anthony told them mirrored defense attorney Jose Baez's opening and closing statements.

Most importantly, though, the documents come close to allowing Anthony to speak for herself — and tell her story — something that never happened at her trial.

Some details:

•Anthony said Caylee may have been conceived during a "date rape" in the fall of 2004. She was not romantically involved with anyone when she attended a party that October or November, but added she may have had a "spiked" drink because she "blacked out," according to the Weitz deposition.

•Anthony said her father, George, sexually abused her for years and told the doctors she suspected he might be Caylee's father, but DNA testing later disproved that.

•Despite the possible cause of her pregnancy, Weitz said Anthony "never considered, once she was pregnant, having an abortion or having the baby put up for adoption. She wanted the child."

•Anthony said she feared her father would sexually abuse Caylee and was hesitant to leave her alone with him. She described for both doctors waking up without her child in mid-June 2008 and then her father showing the wet, lifeless child to her.

"It is the perception of Casey that her father had something to do with the death of her daughter," Weitz said. "It's clear that she believes that George either harmed and/or took the life of [Caylee]."

After first being yelled at, Casey Anthony said, "Dad took her from me, said all's going to be okay. Daddy will take care of it," according to the Weitz deposition. "Although she believed the child was deceased, part of her wanted her daughter to be alive."

Both experts found Anthony suffered no mental illness.

But Danziger told prosecutors during his April deposition that he was so distraught about repeating the criminal allegations Anthony made against her father that he lost sleep over the matter.

He initially was court-appointed to evaluate Anthony for competency, but in October 2010, her attorneys Baez and Cheney Mason met with him about working on the case.

The experts' statements were first alluded to in former prosecutor Jeff Ashton's best-selling book about the case. Then the Orlando Sentinel specifically requested that they be unsealed. Perry did that Wednesday.

Hanging over both depositions was the concern — and suspicion — that Anthony was just telling a new set of lies to her mental-health experts.

George Anthony's attorney, Mark Lippman, released a response late Wednesday, dismissing the claims against his client.

"As he [George] has repeatedly said prior to the trial, during the trial and after the trial he never molested any member of his family including Casey Anthony and he had nothing to do with the death of Caylee Marie Anthony," Lippman stated.

Experts weigh in

With the release of the depositions — which were conducted in April, before the trial began — defense lawyers who have long followed the case offered their views.

Orlando defense attorney Richard Hornsby, a legal analyst for WESH-Channel 2, said experts such as Danziger and Weitz are not supposed to determine whether someone is being truthful or telling a lie. They're hired to determine whether the defendant has a mental-health disorder.

"The problem is, in making their determinations, they have to — by default — testify what was told to them," Hornsby said.

Hornsby said defendants commonly feed lies to mental-health experts to try to convince them they suffer from a mental problem or, in some instances, try to legitimize or make the story more believable by telling the expert.

"That's a very common tactic for defendants," he said.

William Sheaffer, WFTV-Channel 9 legal analyst, agreed, but said he was dubious of anything Anthony says.

"The purpose of calling these guys was to put her story forward without the state having to cross-examine," Anthony, he said. "You can't believe anything that comes out of this woman's mouth."